Dr. Joe Leeker of U of Texas is the undisputed expert on the history of US covert air ops using front carriers such as Air America and Southern Air Transport. Dr. Leeker told me that that no operational airdrops were made from 727s during the Vietnam war. The SAT 727 air drops of paratroopers and cargo over Thailand were test drops only. He said there was no need to masquerade as an airliner over an active war zone and there were many acft available in Vietnam that were far better suited for air drops that 727s. You are not allowed to view links.
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Don Kirlin knows a ton about Boeing's 727 drop tests. He had to access an enormous amount of Boeing paperwork in order to get FAA clearance to use a 727 as a skydiving jumpship. Don is an expert skydiver, airline pilot (727 type rated) and former Navy pilot. He runs a very successful business supplying adversary aircraft for Navy fighter training. Among his fleet are two low time Mig 29s. Read about Don's remarkable business here: You are not allowed to view links.
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From WIRED article: "Once he sets his mind to a goal, he's relentless. He soloed his first plane at 16, instructed at 18, and began flying corporate jets three years later. He flew in the Navy, got twin bachelor degrees in business and clinical psychology, and then an MBA, all from the University of Northern Colorado, and moved on to US Airways. In 1993, he asked the FAA to let him parachute from the rear stairway of a Boeing 727, like the infamous skyjacker D. B. Cooper, who disappeared over the Cascades with $200,000 in 1971. Kirlin shrugs his shoulders and grins. "I just wanted to do it because the only other person to do it was Cooper," he says. The FAA said no, unless he could prove unequivocally it was safe. A year later, he presented 6,500 pages of documents to the agency. He remains to this day the only person authorized to operate jumps out of the rear door of a 727."
Several people have tried to interview him about Cooper's 727 jump without success. He is a nice guy but just super busy.
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This contradicts what Bruce said Everett Johnson pilot with cia world airways told him. So if this is correct and commercial 727 were not used in Vietnam then that dispels the myth that cooper could of known that the aft stairs could be lowered in flight from jumping them in nam. He could of known you can safely jump from a 727 from the air America drop tests but not that the stairs could be lowered in the air because those modded 727’s didn’t have them installed. This really narrows the pool of people that knew the 727 stairs can be lowered in flight. So again I beg the question cooper knew this very expert detail but needed to be shown where the clearly visible lever on the aft door was and that it just needed to be pushed down just not buying it. What makes more sense to me is cooper didn’t want to tip his hand so to speak as far as his aft stairs expertise, by taking off with them down he wouldn’t have to reveal his knowledge that the 727 stairs could be lowered in flight knowing this could put a spotlight on the small pool of people that had this expertise but once they didn’t budge he had let the cat out of the bag but to counteract this as a red herring he pretended to need tinas help to lower them and asked to cockpit to lower them knowing this would create a question on how much he actually knew about the plane. We are questioning this today so if that was his intention missioned accomplished. Cooper was playing 3D level chess here and if he was let’s say a Boeing hydraulic engineer who designed the aft stairs for the 727 he had to know they could possibly come under scrutiny. By asking for stairs down initially on take off that is also something a Boeing engineer wouldn’t attempt. In fact in one of the 302’s one of the fbi’s initial Inquiries into Boeing was investigating a group there who participated in a test program with the 727 aft stairs. This group told the fbi they would never attempt a take off with stairs down thus the fbi came to the conclusion it couldn’t of been anybody from Boeing because they would never attempt that and ceased any further investigation into Boeing employees. Again mission accomplished.
There was an article in an aviation trade publication around 1964, about the same time that the 727 was entering commercial service, that stated that the 727 had been tested with the aft stairs deployed. So the simple fact that the 727 could fly with the stairs down was readily available to anyone who kept track of the 727 program. But Cooper didn't really understand how to lower the stairs, even after Tina showed him how to do it, and initially apparently thought that the flight engineer was the one who lowered them.
Do you have a link to this article? He first requested Tina to stay and help him lower them and then asked the cockpit to do it doesn’t make sense if he asked Tina to do it first then we would assume he believed they were controlled from the back so why the change of thinking when he requested the cockpit to do it after Tina showed him? Again I think he was intentionally creating confusion.
I don't have a link for it but the article may be archived on Shutter's site somewhere. It was in a British publication if I remember correctly.
Flyjack posted it April 12, 2019 on DZ on pg 2331. Here is link You are not allowed to view links.
Register or Login if you don't want to log in, take off the dashes -https://www.dropzone.com/forums/topic/56036-db-cooper/page/2331/- It came from Flight International magazine 18 JUNE 1964
The knowledge of the aft stairs indicating he was CIA are absurd. It's just one more fallacy. Not many people want to believe that Cooper could have been a regular Joe.
Nicky: I'm assuming you saw this, but if you didn't, check out page 158 of this FOIA file from TC's site: You are not allowed to view links.
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It's a letter about a POW.
It's unlikely Cooper was part of the highly trained covert MANSON FAMILY!
Nicky you are confused because the record (Flt Comm Transcript) is confusing and jumbled, about who is saying what when, in regard to getting rear door opened and stairs lowered ... the issue was not in Cooper's original demands but starts around 18:21 after the chutes had been delivered, before 305 had lifted off from SEA, ... the issues of destination, flight configuration, getting door open, stairs lowered, etc etc etc all come up at the same time .. around 8:21. It isnt even clear at times if the cockpit is communicating directly with Cooper or to Cooper through Tina! Its a mess! Before this mass of communications is over both Tina and the pilot are involved via Cooper in (a) getting door open, and (b) lowering stairs.... destination agreement, etc.
How you can tie all of this to Cooper being Special Forces, CIA, Vietnam, or whatever ... does not connect to anything said in the Transcript! That is all your invention.
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